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Tailoring the Past: An Approach to Dress, Making, and Embodied Knowledge
No full textThis presentation examines how history can be constructed and made visible through design, using a methodology that brings together object analysis, making, remaking, and embodied research. Focusing on early- to mid nineteenth-century historical garments, this presentation explores how dress functions as material evidence and participant in the shaping of historical knowledge. This reflection positions design as a means of historical analysis by using three interconnected approaches: ‘dress as object of evidence’, ‘remaking as research method’, and ‘embodied research as process of knowing’. Together, these methods offer a way of accessing forms of historical understanding that are sensory, practice-based, and materially based. Through the examination of museum collection garments, historical tailoring techniques, and the experiential act of wearing remade clothing, this study highlights how the history of design is not only told through text, but also designed—using cut, construction, and movement. By engaging with the materiality of the past, this investigation challenges conventional historical narratives that neglect the labour, technique, and embodied knowledge embedded in clothing. It asks: what can made, or remade garments tell us that archival documents cannot? And how might historical research change when it is practiced through the hands and the body, rather than through the written word? This paper contributes to a growing discourse around practice informed design history, demonstrating how the relationship between design, making and theory can open new ways for understanding the past—not only as it was recorded, but as it was worn, made, and experienced
Enabling as the anchor for regenerative cultural policy
Get PDFApproaches known as wealth accounting share the assumption that our prosperity – and survival – depend on our ability to take a systemic approach to value creation across the interconnected dimensions collectively supporting social wellbeing. The key argument of this article is that the arts and culture, when considered in terms of wealth accounting, can improve the system in which they operate though enabling. Enabling means contributing to the production of goods and services in other domains and informing the dynamics of the system without being a directly measurable outcome. A different way to put this is that cultural assets, qua enabling, sustain and orient: they support production in other domains, and regulate relationships across the entire system. Moreover, the arts and culture are effective in enabling by pursuing goals inherent to culture, rather than intentionally seeking externally imposed impacts. Enabling should thus be the anchor for regenerative cultural policy
Uchronic Fashion Collections as Queer Archives
No full textAs Caroline Evans and Alessandra Vaccari note, 'fashion has a curious affinity with unorthodox models of time' as a performative and thus 'time-based and time-specific medium' (2020: 3). This paper explores strategies and aesthetics of contemporary fashion designers whose practice engages creatively with elements of queer history and memory. In doing so, it seeks to initiate a map of diverse approaches to fashion as a queer archive, focusing on the ways that specific works and collections can be said to encompass queer 'emotional experiences and intimacies' (Cvetkovich, 2014: 274).
The first example discussed is Edward Crutchley's Spring Summer 2022 collection, which is illustrative of anachronistic fashion practice. The paper focuses on looks developed from an 18th century robe a l'anglaise, an ensemble worn by the upper classes in the context of everyday life and aristocratic salons. Particular attention is also placed on the design of textiles and references to the work of Anna Maria Garthwaite, a prolific 18th century textile designer who lived and worked in Spitalfields, London. The paper also considers connections drawn to and across London's 18th and 19th century molly houses and 1980s and 90s queer club cultures.
This is contrasted with work produced by Adeju Thompson, founder of non-binary luxury label Lagos Space Programme. Anlaysis focuses on the brand's Cloth as Queer Archive project, with emphasis on the use of Yoruba textile cultures and resistance dyeing techniques. The paper uses this work to discuss how Afrofuturist sensibilities can be aligned to uchronic approaches and to extend discussions of legibility that run across both examples.
Ultimately, the paper aims to offer an expanded understanding of 'queer fashion' beyond dominant Fashion Studies frameworks of performativity and subversion. This is grounded in practice and attentive to the ways in which temporality and materiality combine to produce fashion's affective charge. Ultimately, it demonstrates fashion's ability to both communicate and satisfy a 'queer desire for history' (Dinshaw et al, 2007: 178) in a manner which is imaginative, playful and sensual
Turning Revolt Into Style
No full textKeynote presentation at the Subcultures Network Postgraduate Conference, 'Ordinary lives, Everyday People?', University of East Anglia, Norwich, 10-11 April 202
Live Methods as creative resistance: Crafting a PhD and solidarity in the neoliberal university
Get PDFThe call to revisit Les Back and Nirmal Puwar’s landmark 2012 work Live Methods prompted us to consider the legacy of this text at Goldsmiths college, where the editors and many of the contributors were writing from in 2012. We are PhD students in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, a space where Live Methods has left a marked influence through practices of teaching, learning and research. At Goldsmiths, the 2021–2023 academic years saw an extensive and deeply unpopular ‘restructuring’ process imposed on the college community by senior management, with staff unions responding through extended industrial action. This article reports on PhD student solidarity and creative resistance during that time. We discuss how the ‘Live Methods manifesto’ was used as an intervention on the picket line and as a critical resource for fostering resistance against the neoliberal restructuring of our university. This creative resistance was deeply rooted in the solidarities and affective infrastructures of support that grew out of our weekly Sociology graduate student seminar, ‘Crafting a PhD’. In this article, we present a multimodal account of these events, including narrative and audiovisual material. A decade on from the publication of Live Methods, with the neoliberalisation of UK universities intensifying, we argue that the manifesto’s call for sociologists to embrace a creative and critical orientation towards research is more vital than ever. Live Methods is a resource not only for research, but for inspiring creative resistance and sustaining our collective projects of learning and life within the university
Brave: Designing an Embedded Network-Bending Instrument, Manifesting Output Diversity in Neural Audio Systems
Get PDFAs neural audio synthesis becomes more widely adopted there is a growing risk that its limitations could impact the content, quality and diversity of mu- sic. Some musicians, artists, and researchers perceive an increased risk of cultural homogenisation and qualitative degeneration due to poor quality training data and parameterisation. This work seeks to explore new methods for addressing these challenges by contributing to the developing field of ”network-bending”. Network-bending employs direct manipulation of internal ML architectures to enable active divergence from the training corpus, increasing the statistical variability and capability of model outputs. We present “Brave”: an embedded, network-bending hardware instrument, which can provide a novel blueprint for embedding a network- bending system on a stand-alone system. Through a process of iterative musician-led feedback, drawing on Proof-of-Concept Media and Arts Technology approaches, this work seeks to stimulate further interest in network-bending frameworks applied in the field of AI-driven sound synthesis
Piece of Paper Press, Thirty-one years of Piece of Paper Press: artists’ books, artworks and ephemera, 1994–2025
No full textBOOK DRAWINGS #1-12 included in group show 'Thirty-one years of Piece of Paper Press: artists' books, artworks and ephemera, 1994-2025' at Matt's Gallery, London, 29 January - 23 March, 2025
Review of Introduction to Design Psychology by Eleni Kalantidou
Get PDFBook review of Introduction to Design Psychology, which the reviewer describes as an important and timely project as we careen toward uncertain, unsustainable, and technocratic futures
Co-Rean
No full textThe Co-Rean exhibition is a vibrant, student-led showcase at London College of Fashion (LCF), UAL, that celebrates Korean creativity across disciplines.
Organised by LIFT (Leaders Inspiring Future Talent), the event reflects a shared dedication to cross-cultural dialogue, sustainability, and inclusive LCF creative communities. Aligned with UAL’s 2022–2032 vision to challenge industry norms and nurture socially conscious talent, LIFT bridges education, industry, and global collaboration.
The exhibition invites students to reimagine fashion’s role through sustainability, heritage, and partnership themes. It features a special workshop with Re;Code from Kolon Industries, South Korea, on 18 June 2025